


got a little soul

by rusesdeguerre



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, M/M, dumbass behaviour
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-22
Updated: 2020-01-22
Packaged: 2021-02-26 08:33:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22354618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rusesdeguerre/pseuds/rusesdeguerre
Summary: “This still kinda sounds like a weird romantic definitely-not-bro-behaviour thing?” Sanny says, doubtful. “You wanna buy him a necklace?”“Yes, but for the vampire plan, as I just explained.”“I’m pretty sure Patty’s human, though. Have you seen his cheeks? Vampires don’t blush like that.”
Relationships: Travis Konecny/Nolan Patrick
Comments: 42
Kudos: 459





	got a little soul

Before anyone comes jumping down his throat, Travis just wants to clarify that he has nothing against vampires. He had a couple of friends in juniors who were, at the very least, vamp-curious, and Travis loved all of them very dearly, even when they would all disappear to the bathroom when the dinner bill came around. That, however, didn’t seem like a particularly vampire-specific behaviour, as far as Travis could tell; that was just asshole teenage boy behaviour—shitty, but expected. The bloodsucking_ had _ been weird and a little bit nauseating, but only when Travis thought about it too hard, which he didn’t do very often. Besides, back in Ottawa, Brownie used to peel lemons and eat them slice by slice as someone might eat an orange, which was as equally, if not more, weird and nauseating. (“It’s good for your immune system,” Brownie had explained, chewing around a lemon slice. “I’d rather die of measles, thanks,” Travis had responded disdainfully.) The point is, Travis has no qualms with vampires, but he does feel a little bit hurt that Patty doesn’t trust Travis enough to tell him that he is one. 

Well. Maybe that’s not quite accurate. 

Travis doesn’t actually have any hard evidence of Patty’s vampirism. It’s more of a gut feeling, some sort of hidden survival instinct buried deep in Travis’ brain: a premonition, if you will. It’s just—there’s a pretty large and ever growing collection of little things that Travis sees Patty do sometimes that, when combined, seem to point towards the relatively obvious, although not the only, explanation: that Patty is a vampire. 

For example, a couple of months ago, when it was his and Patty’s turn for the patented “G Takes Out the Rookies For Dinner” dinner, even though neither of them was technically a rookie anymore, Patty had ordered the _ Bucatini all’Amatriciana_. He had to take out his phone to Google the pronunciation of the pasta dish before he ordered and still, much to G’s embarrassment and consternation, managed to sound like a congested Mario. The pasta itself honestly looked the same as the spaghetti Patty cooked at home: pasta noodles and tomato sauce and ground beef and onion and cheese and—

“_Jesus_, that is a lot of fucking garlic,” Patty had said, and started coughing. 

—a lot of fucking garlic. 

G had handed Patty a glass of water and joked, “Geez, Patty. You alright? It’s just garlic. You scared of alliums or something?” 

Patty had flushed, mumbled something incoherently, and gulped down the glass of water. That gave Travis pause; he stopped shovelling food into his mouth and narrowed his eyes at Patty suspiciously. Patty, on his part, wouldn’t meet Travis’ eyes and instead had quickly changed the topic to G’s kid. 

And then, just last month, on one of their days off, Travis had stomped downstairs to Patty’s apartment unit to go bother him, as per usual. No one came to the door when he knocked, so Travis just assumed Patty had slept through his alarm and was in the shower or something and used the spare key he’d once stolen off of Patty’s coffee table to get into the apartment. It was eerily quiet, just the sound of the hands on the clock ticking. The curtains were all drawn shut, and the only source of light in the apartment was coming from the tiny stained window in the washroom that had no curtain to close. When Travis gently nudged the door into Patty’s room open and tiptoed instead, Patty was still asleep in bed, completely knocked out, cocooned in a blanket burrito. 

“Patty!” Travis had shouted, right into his ear. “Pats, you asshole. It’s two o’clock in the afternoon, get the fuck up!” 

Nothing. 

Travis sighed. He flicked Patty’s ear, and then picked up the bottle of water on Patty’s nightstand, unscrewed the cap, and dumped the entire thing over Patty’s face. 

“What the _ fuck_?” Patty had bolted straight up in bed, flailing his legs everywhere. His hair was sopping wet and it was dripping right onto his pillow. 

“Rise and shine, motherfucker,” Travis said, and walked to the other side of Patty’s bed to pull up the shades and let the cold winter light stream into the room and from behind him, he heard Patty literally hiss and dive back underneath his blankets, as if the sun had physically hurt his pale and translucent porcelain skin. 

And, like. 

Okay, Travis doesn’t like getting woken up either, especially on a day off. Especially on a day off after an embarrassing loss at home the night before. But still. He doesn’t _ hiss _when he’s exposed to sunlight, like some kind of fucking snake. The weird aversion to garlic and now this sudden allergy to sunlight—it seemed like too much of a pattern to be called a coincidence. Internally, Travis started crossing off possibilities: there was genuinely a lot of garlic in that pasta (potentially but unlikely; it was a high-end Italian restaurant, Travis thinks they would know how much garlic is too much), Patty has a sun sensitivity (nope; unless you count his aversion to using sunscreen and always getting sunburnt due to his stubbornness), and—this is the one that Travis is highest on—Patty is a vampire (pending; under investigation). Sure, most of it is circumstantial evidence, but circumstantial evidence also sentenced Tommy McVeigh to death. 

**_____________**

Travis comes up with a plan. He digs out his laptop from underneath the pile of laundry that’s always occupying the armchair in his room and proceeds to like, do research and take notes and shit. There’s even a decent amount of cross-referencing and verifying his information because this project is Patty-related, meaning it’s serious and important enough that Travis can’t afford to screw up just because howstuffworks.com couldn’t be bothered to practice journalistic integrity and double-check their sources. You can’t believe everything you see on the Internet. He types out everything onto a Word document, prints it out, highlights the important stuff, and makes annotations and everything. If this hockey thing doesn’t end up working out for him, Travis could totally go the college route. 

The next day, he heads off to G’s house to get him to look over the plan he’s outlined. He brings over the bottle of wine one of his mom’s Book Club friends gave to him when he went back home for the summer (Travis isn’t going to drink the wine; he doesn’t even own glassware), just in case G is in a prickly mood. 

When he rings the doorbell, Ryanne answers, holding Gavin in one arm. 

“Travis!” Ryanne grins at him, because she’s lovely and a much better human being than G is and ever will be. “Claude didn’t say you were stopping by today.” 

“I, uh, didn’t tell him?” Jesus, he hopes G doesn’t give him the murder eyes. “I brought wine!” He holds up the wine bottle. 

“Great, I’ll trade you the baby for the wine,” Ryanne says, shoving Gavin into Travis’ arms without waiting for a reply and grabbing the wine bottle from him. 

“Wait, fuck—” Travis stumbles back, gripping Gavin very tightly. Once he gets his footing back, he loosens his grip just slightly, and squints down at the bundle of tiny human in his arms. G keeps saying that Gav is absolutely the smartest baby he knows, and Travis isn’t sure if G’s judgement is bad or if he just hasn’t met many babies, because Gav looks pretty dumb right now with his bald little head and scrunched up nose and tiny little flapping arms and toothless grin. Sure, he’s a cute baby, but he probably doesn’t even know how to sell a trip to make sure the refs call the penalty. Even Sanny knows how to do that and Sanny’s an idiot. 

“Claude’s in the kitchen, if you need him,” Ryanne says, gesturing for him to come in. “Gav just woke up from a nap, so he’s pretty calm right now. If he starts to smell funny, tell Claude it’s his turn for the diaper change.” 

Ryanne goes to put the wine away, leaving Travis with a giggling baby in his arms. 

“Hi, Gav,” he says. 

Gavin makes a gurgling sound. It’s objectively really gross—there’s just _ so _ much saliva—but he sounds pretty happy, and Travis isn’t going to shit on him for being _ happy_. It’s hard to be happy sometimes and it’s important to cherish the times when someone is happy, even if that someone is a useless baby with little to no brain matter. 

“Let’s go find your idiot father, eh?” Travis coos. Gav claps his hands in response. 

G is, indeed, in the kitchen. He’s wearing an apron that says “KISS ME” in red cursive font and blending something in his food processor. When Travis walks in, he looks up and the range of emotions his face goes through is pretty incredible, and if Travis were being honest and if G was looking for a second job, he would suggest contacting an acting agency. 

“What.” G crosses his arms. He looks wary, but also isn’t reaching over to immediately snatch Gavin away from Travis. “Why are you here. In my kitchen. With my baby. Where is my wife.” 

None of the questions G just asked are actually questions; they are just statements with the sentence structure of a question, which makes Travis nervous. “Uh, I’ve got a plan to prove that Patty is a vampire and I wanted you to look at it? And Ryanne gave me the baby? She said it’s your turn for diaper change?” 

“For fuck’s sake,” G mutters underneath his breath. He pulls his hands away from the food processor and wipes them on his apron and says, “Okay, what the fuck, run that by me again. You want to prove that Patty is a what?” 

“A vampire,” Travis reminds him. He thought he was pretty clear about that the first time. Gavin is starting to squirm in his arms, so he adjusts him a little bit and gives him his left hand to chew on. 

“_Why _do you think Patty is a vampire?” 

“You don’t think he’s a vampire?” 

“No!” 

“Well, I’m sorry you had to hear it from me, but you’re wrong,” Travis says and pulls out a folded sheet of paper from his back pocket with the hand Gavin was previously chewing on and holds Gavin with the other. “Here’s the plan.” 

G takes it between two fingers, more suspiciously than necessary, reads it over, looking more and more constipated the further he reads. When he gets to the bottom of the page, he loudly sighs, but doesn’t say anything. The kitchen is silent for a good five minutes before G finally asks, “Is this a joke?” 

“No,” Travis answers. 

“It looks like a joke.” 

“It isn’t,” Travis insists. “I had to read like, scientific articles and stuff. Do I look like I’d _ read things _for a joke?” 

“Okay,” G acquiesces, “good point.” He hands over the paper to Travis. “It looks fine.” 

Travis narrows his eyes at G. “What do you mean ‘_fine_’?” 

“I mean, it seems fine. It seems like a good plan.” 

“That’s it?” 

G raises an eyebrow. “Yeah, that’s it. Did you want me to say something else?” 

“I don’t know!” Travis sputters. “You always have stuff to say! Don’t you have constructive criticism or something?” 

“Not this time,” G says. He shakes the paper he’s still holding in Travis’ face. “I’m just looking forward to your funeral when Patty kills you for doing all this stupid shit to him. Take your plan and give me my baby back.” 

Travis glares, but obediently hands Gavin over to G and folds his Prove Patty is a Vampire Operation plan back into his pocket. Gav immediately tries to grab at G’s beard with his tiny little hands and makes some wet happy baby noises. That traitor. “Patty’s not going to kill me. We’re best friends.” 

“Hm,” G says, noncommittal, face carefully blank. 

“We are!” 

“Even if Patty is a vampire, as you believe he is, don’t you think maybe he just wants to keep that private?” 

Travis hesitates and thinks about that. Patty is a pretty private person, but he isn’t needlessly secretive. Sure, he hates it when Travis tries to pry out details about his hook-ups and his questionable fashion choices and why he gets so flustered so easily, but he shares the important things about himself with Travis—things like how much he adores his sisters, and his friends back home in Manitoba, and the fishing and hunting trips he used to take with his dad, and his frustration when he isn’t playing well. Travis isn’t really sure why he wouldn’t tell him about the whole being-a-vampire-thing, but he supposes there are many more layers to unpack about being a vampire than there are for most other things. Beyond that, though, he doesn’t want Patty to like, need to hide stuff from him. Like, sure, it’s kind of weird to see mostly human-looking people drink blood like he would drink a milkshake, but he can deal with that if it means Patty can do his normal vampire stuff around Travis without worrying about freaking him out. It’s so like Patty to pass things off as being fine when they clearly are not, and Travis doesn’t want him to walk into his apartment and feel like he needs to leave part of himself at the door. “No,” he settles with. 

“Okay,” G shrugs, and then snorts. “It’s your funeral. Literally.” 

“Fuck you,” Travis scowls. He grabs a blue Gatorade from his fridge and stomps out of G’s kitchen, flipping him off on the way. 

“Don’t forget about dinner tomorrow!” G calls after him. 

**_____________**

Vampires can supposedly catch on fire. A quick Google search recommends building a large bonfire in the middle of an open field, tying the vampire onto a wooden stake, and leaving the vampire to burn in the bonfire for at least half an hour. 

“Jesus Christ,” Travis mutters, scrolling down the United States Department of Vampire Affairs webpage and scanning for milder options. He briefly contemplates how an official government website is even allowed to host this kind of potentially genocidal information. Travis doesn’t want to _ kill _ Patty—the opposite, really—but if someone _ did_, they could just fucking call 1-844-USA-GOV1 and be on their way to commit hate crimes in like, five minutes. He wonders if he should stock Patty’s apartment with a couple of fire extinguishers, just in case. 

In any case, the bonfire killing is way too aggressive for Travis’ goal—he wants Patty’s admittance to vampirism, not actual vampire death. Besides, it’s the middle of winter, and Philly’s winters are not incredibly conducive to being outside and doing some kumbaya-my-lord marshmallow-roasting campfire bullshit. Travis decides to improvise and instead purchases a variety of candles from Bath & Body Works. The Vanilla Patchouli fragrance smells fucking exquisite; he considers buying a candle set for the locker room. 

On his way back home from the mall, he texts Patty to come over for dinner, and drives over the bridge to Jersey to pick up some sushi. 

**from pats**  
are you paying? 

**to pats****  
** ya, you fuckin cheapskate  
sushi, you in or what? 

**from pats****  
** duh???? 7pm??

**to pats**  
don’t be fuckin late  
also bring your extra ps4 controller  
i wanna whoop your ass

Travis can multitask, no big deal; he’ll prove Patty is a vampire and kick his ass at NHL17, all in a day’s work. 

The traffic back into Philly is awful, as it usually is, and even more so because it starts to snow and everyone collectively loses their minds, like they’ve never seen snow before, and Travis has to really haul ass from the parking garage up to his apartment to set everything up before Patty gets there. He places a couple of the candles on the living room table, arranging them in concentric circles around the middle, and lights them with a gas lighter. He takes out the styrofoam sushi containers, puts them on the table, dims the living room light just a bit, and texts Patty to hurry the fuck up, he’s not getting any younger. As he’s waiting for Patty, Travis takes a step back to admire the living room table. He sends a picture to his mom, just to let her know that after twenty-one long years, he did eventually learn how to set the table. 

His mom texts back immediately: _takeout containers? no!! _so Travis goes to retrieve the ceramic plates with blue and yellow firework patterns along the edges from the back of the uppermost kitchen cabinet, where his parents stashed them when they helped Travis move in and from where they have never been moved. Five minutes later, just as Travis is about to make his way downstairs to drag Patty over, Patty bangs on the door loudly, like he doesn’t know that Travis’ door is unlocked. Travis yanks open the door, and frowns up at Patty’s usual unimpressed face. “You’re late,” he says.

Patty rolls his eyes and says, “I was looking for the controller.” He waves the controller around in Travis’ face, and Travis snatches it. “It was in my _ laundry basket_, why the fuck was it in my laundry basket?” 

Travis pulls Patty into his apartment, closes the door behind him, and shrugs. “Why the hell are you asking me? It’s your apartment.” 

Patty sighs deeply. “Because you were the last person to use the controller and you were also the last person who visited my apartmen—” Patty comes to an abrupt stop as he turns the corner into the living room where the candles and sushi are set. “What the fuck.” 

“Dinner!” Travis says cheerfully. He pulls out a chair and gestures for Patty to sit down, which he does, slowly and gingerly, as if he’s approaching a skittish wild animal. Travis carefully scans Patty’s face. He doesn’t look scared or frightened or nervous, which Travis thought he might, given the horror stories he read online about vampires and their aversion to fire. Instead, he’s just frowning, the corner of his mouth downturned slightly, and casting suspicious glances between Travis and the candles. 

“What,” he intones. 

“For fuck’s sake,” Travis says, and sits down heavily on a chair. “Do you even read my texts? I said we were going to have dinner.” 

“Right.” Patty pokes at a sushi roll with one finger. “What’s the rest of this then?” He gestures at the table set-up. 

“Just spicing things up,” Travis says, nonchalantly. He inconspicuously pushes one of the candles closer to Patty, real casual, and watches Patty’s face. His expression doesn’t change. “I know you’re a big sucker for vanilla-scented things, don’t lie to me.” 

Patty snorts, but doesn’t argue with Travis and looks marginally more relaxed. He picks up the sushi roll he was poking at and shoves it in his mouth in one go and chews around it with disgusting mouth noises. After swallowing, Patty peers at the labels at one of the candles in front of him, and makes a thoughtful sound. “Where’d you even get these candles? Might buy some for my mom for her birthday.” 

“Yeah, they’re from—” Travis breaks off in the middle of his sentence and squints at Patty. This wasn’t the reaction he was expecting. He considers the implications of Patty buying his mom candles for a second and can’t reconcile anything. He says, “What?” 

“My mom likes candles,” Patty explains. He takes out his phone and snaps a picture of the label on the candle, presumably so he can buy it for his mom later. Okay. Travis recalibrates a couple of things in his head. Maybe Patty’s half-vampire; human from his mom’s side and vampire from his dad’s side. Maybe they’re non-practising vampires. Maybe the United States Department of Vampire Affairs webpage was just full of shit. Maybe Bath & Body Works makes vampire-safe candles. He watches Patty take photos of four other candles and type something onto his phone, as if he’s noting which scents he likes the best. 

“Huh,” Travis says. He sighs and mentally scraps “Step #1: Frighten With Fire” from his plan. He pushes the entire collection of candles on his dining room table towards Patty. “They’re from Bath & Body Works. You know that store in Liberty Place that always smells like flowers, but like really artificial flowers? Yeah, that place. Anyway, you can have them if you want.” 

Patty looks up from his phone and says, “I know what Bath & Body Works is, dumbass,” and then furrows his eyebrows and says, “Really? You don’t need them to like, impress girls or some shit?” 

Travis laughs. “Yeah, right. I don’t need candles to do that.” He grins at Patty and flicks his tongue out of his mouth. “If you know what I mean.” 

“God,” Patty says, “don’t make that face ever again, Jesus Christ. Are you sure, though? I feel like you need the candles, dude. Remember that girl you tried to pick up in Florida? The one who literally walked away from you?” 

“No,” Travis lies, “I don’t remember that.” 

“Yeah, probably because you were blackout drunk.”

“Anyway,” Travis says, shamelessly changing the subject away from his relationship failures and ignoring the smirk on Patty’s face, “I just bought the candles today for this.” 

Patty’s smile fades a bit and a strange look passes over his face; the back of his neck starts to flush. Travis tilts his head and considers this: maybe there _ is _some residual candle effect. 

“You bought these candles specifically for… this dinner?” Patty asks, in a strangled voice. 

He bends down to heave up a bag of more candles. “I’ve got more!” 

“What. What—I mean, what the fuck, man?” 

He squirms under Patty’s intense and questioning gaze and tries to defend himself. “They were on sale, okay!” he says. They had not been on sale. “Do you want them or not?” 

Pats stays silent for a couple of moments, the weird look still on his face. Eventually, he leans back in his chair and shrugs and says, “Yeah, if you don’t need them.” 

Travis exhales noisily from his nose. God, Patty’s so fucking weird. Not even like, vampire weird, like Travis was hoping, just normal weird. 

**_____________**

This was _ so _not the situation Travis had wanted to be in. They lost to the Penguins 8–5 the evening before. Their season’s over, ending on a pretty embarrassing note, if Travis is being honest. An underrated awful thing about that 8–5 game was that it was in Philadelphia, which was maybe the third worst part of the entire losing to the Penguins situation after 1) losing and 2) to the Penguins. Travis doesn’t really want to think about it. He had dropped Patty home after the game and he hasn’t seen him since. He probably locked himself in his room and wallowed in all his sad Patty feelings. 

Not that Travis isn’t sad. He is; losing is the fucking worst, and he’s pissed off because it had to be against the Penguins, and he’s angry at himself. He had spent last night in a fit of incandescent rage that mainly involved him screaming on his balcony and smashing his face against his pillows a couple of hundreds of times until he fell asleep. 

Sleeping for fourteen hours really does wonders, Travis thinks as he leans against his kitchen counters, chugging orange juice right from the carton and staring at the GRITTY FUCKS magnet on his fridge. It’s vaguely terrifying, in the sense that it’s theoretically possible that Gritty, their probably sentient mascot, fucks, but we’ll never know. The uncertainty of it is what gets Travis. Anyway, the point is, Travis is feeling better the next morning and he’s thinking about his Patty Is A Vampire Plan. It’s been on the back burner lately—playoffs really drains you out mentally and physically—but while the Stanley Cup will wait for you each year, vampire mysteries will not. So Travis thinks for a while and decides to call in reinforcements. 

He texts Sanny. 

**to sanny **  
you free today? 

**from sanny****  
** im doing great, thanks so much for asking teeks, how are you doing?

**to sanny****  
** ughhhhhhh you know i love you, man  
also i know youre free today  
what the fuck else are you doing

**from sanny**  
idk, maybe spending quality time with my BEAUTIFUL GIRLFRIEND 

**to sanny ****  
** ok hotshot we get it, you have sex on the regular  
please please please please please  
BROS BEFORE HOES

**from sanny **  
yeah ok im just messing w you. when? 

Travis checks his phone for the time. 

**to sanny **  
15 mins? 

**from sanny ****  
** oh my fucking god 

He speeds over to Sanny’s place in ten minutes flat and texts him _ ur uber is here_. 

_ can my uber go away_, comes the reply, and then thirty seconds later, Sanny appears at the front door of his apartment complex. Travis waves. Sanny rolls his eyes. 

“So,” he asks when he gets into Travis’ car, “what’s all this rush for? Is someone dying? Are you proposing?” 

“No,” Travis says, “but it is jewellery related.” 

“Oooooh.” Sanny peers at Travis, suddenly interested. “New girlfriend?” 

“No,” he repeats. “It’s for Patty.” 

Sanny laughs and leans back in his seat. “Old girlfriend.” 

Travis takes one hand off the wheel to punch Sanny in the shoulder. “No, you fucking asshole. Patty isn’t my _ girlfriend—_” 

“You’re telling me that you wanna buy jewellery for your _ bro_?” 

“It’s for a…” Travis trails off, considering. “A side project,” he settles with. 

Sanny looks scandalized. “Are you calling Patty your side piece?” 

“For fuck’s sake, no. Patty’s not my—anything. And besides, if he was, he wouldn’t be the _ side piece_.” Travis lets out a deep sigh and is suddenly grateful that nobody’s ever going to expect him to exhibit the amount of patience and discipline G displays every single fucking day by not murdering everyone on the team. “Okay, _fine_. I wasn’t going to tell you but I guess I will because you’re so fucking annoying. Patty’s a vampire and he won’t admit it so I’m trying to let him know that he can trust me to keep his vampire secret. Also, because I read on Wikipedia that silver is supposed to make vampires kinda itchy? Which is a lot better than full on killing them. So I’m thinking of a silver necklace? Like a chain?” 

Sanny opens his mouth and then closes it and opens it again and says, “You’re trying to kill Patty?” 

“What?” Travis glances over at Other Travis. “No, I said there’s a lot of sketchy information on the Internet that could lead to potential vampire death, if you’re not careful. I personally don’t want to kill Patty just because he’s a vampire. That’s literally like, a hate crime or something. Probably against the fucking Magna Carta or whatever.” 

“That’s the Canadian one, dumbass. Also, this still kinda sounds like a weird romantic definitely-not-bro-behaviour thing?” Sanny says, doubtful. “You wanna buy him a necklace?” 

“Yes, but for the vampire plan, as I just explained.” 

“I’m pretty sure Patty’s human, though. Have you seen his cheeks? Vampires don’t blush like that.” 

Travis tilts his head back and forth. Okay, fair. But maybe that’s just a Patty-specific thing. Like, maybe vampires have different blushing thresholds, and Patty’s threshold just happens to be high. Patty’s threshold for a lot of other things (tolerating Travis, ability to drink gross kale protein smoothies, withstanding G’s teasing, et cetera et cetera) is pretty high, so it’s not like it’s unreasonable. 

“Nah,” he finally says. “Trust me.” 

“Oh, right. Because you’re the Patty expert.” 

Travis pats Sanny’s arm condescendingly. “It’s okay, man. Patty definitely loves you second best, after me.” 

“Fuck off,” Sanny says. “And take the next exit. There’s a jewellery place across from the Costco where you can buy your vampire girlfriend a gift.” 

“For the _ last fucking time_—” 

**_____________**

Travis corners Patty at locker clean-out, right after all the reporters have left. Sanny catches his eyes right before he dashes out the locker room to catch up with Patty and shoots Travis a thumbs up. Travis appreciates the support. 

“Patty!” he calls down the hallway. “Pats, wait up!” 

Patty turns around just in time to see Travis trip over his shoelace and stumble into the wall. He snickers. “You good, Teeks? Need a hand there?” 

“Fuck you,” Travis groans, and rubs the shoulder where he slammed into the wall. “I’m totally gonna get a bruise there. Just as a cherry on top of a great fucking week.” 

Patty pulls a face. “I’d like to never talk about that playoff series ever again, thanks.” 

“Yeah,” Travis agrees, “you got it, bud.” 

“So…” Patty peers at Travis curiously. “What’s the big rush for? Did I forget my phone in the locker room or something.” 

“Oh! Oh no,” Travis says. “I’ve got something for you.” 

“My birthday was like, seven months ago, buddy. You kinda dropped the ball on that one.” 

He rolls his eyes and pulls out the little velvet jewellery bag from his pocket and holds it out for Patty. “It’s not for your birthday. I totally got you a present for your birthday though, what are you talking about?” 

“A store-bought chocolate cake from a fucking Wal-Mart Supercentre does not count,” Patty says. He takes the velvet bag and shakes it by his ear and frowns. “What’s this?” 

“You’re supposed to open it, dumbass. That’s kinda how presents work.” 

Patty shoots Travis a glare that lets him know he’s not nearly as funny as he thinks he is. He loosens the drawstring on the bag and pulls out the silver chain necklace from it. Travis had bought a separate crucifix and brought it to a mall kiosk to get it attached the silver chain, just as an extra precaution. He watches as Patty’s eyes immediately when he realizes what he’s holding, it’s comical really, how wide his eyes are, which is about two-fold the reaction he got with the candles. 

Patty dangles the chain in front of his face. “What?” he asks, stupidly, his eyes following the back and forth movement of the necklace. 

“Do you like it?” Travis asks. 

“Uh,” Patty says, and bites down on his bottom lip. Travis stares at his teeth, weirdly transfixed. “Yeah, man. But—uh. Can I ask something?” 

“Yeah, duh,” Travis says. They don’t look _ sharp_, which seems—off. Don’t vampires have sharp teeth? To like, suck blood out of their victims or whatever? Then again, Travis doesn’t know a whole lot about vampire physiology; maybe it’s a retractable situation, like one of those ballpoint pens. Click: fangs out. Click: fangs in. Click: fangs out. Click: fangs in. Who knows, it’s a wild world out there. 

“Okay,” Pats is saying, “so this is a gift, you said? For what exactly? Congrats you made it six games against the Penguins? Congrats on not getting totally embarrassed Sidney Crosby?” 

“We did get totally embarrassed by Crosby, so not that,” Travis says. “Can’t a guy just get his bro a gift without being interrogated?” 

“Right.” Patty clenches his fist around the necklace. Travis squints at him, but Patty doesn’t look like he’s about to break out in hives and have an allergic reaction. No rapid and shortened breathing, doesn’t look like he’s dizzy or lightheaded, no cold sweat breaking across his forehead. His cheeks are slightly pink and rosy, but that’s just Patty, and he doesn’t look any more uncomfortable than he usually does. Dammit, Travis curses internally. Another cold trail. 

“You want me to put that on you?” Travis asks, because even though the vampire part of this plan obviously did not work out, he figures Patty can still get some use out of the necklace. 

“Uhhh…” Patty quickly looks away from Travis and then back at him and shoves the necklace at him roughly. “Yeah.” 

Travis rolls his eyes. “You’re gonna have to turn around, buddy. Why are you so fucking tense all the time? Chill out.” 

Patty turns around and uses one large hand to hold his hair up; Travis can’t believe how long Patty’s hair has gotten this season. It looks pretty badass, if he’s being honest. Sometimes, on the bench, Pats will take off his helmet and dump water on his head and then shake out his hair before putting his helmet back on, and while he does partly resemble a dog coming out of the lake, it’s also intimidatingly hot—which is pretty on brand for Patty. 

Travis gets up on his tiptoes, wraps the chain around Patty’s neck, and fastens the clasp. He pats the back of his neck when he’s done and says, “There you go, bud. You’re fucking welcome.” 

“Thanks,” Pats says, and his voice comes out hoarse and strangled, and when he turns back around to face Travis, he’s biting down on his bottom lip again. 

“Can I touch your teeth?” Travis blurts out suddenly, without thinking. 

Patty blinks once and then another time. “Is this another weird kink of yours?” 

“_No_, I just—I was thinking that—” Travis breaks off and tries to start again and eventually gives up; he’s not really sure if “I wanna see if your fangs will come out when I touch your mouth” would sit well with Patty, vampire or not. “It’s not a weird kink,” he says instead, and then, “what do you mean _ another_? What other fucking kink do you know about it?” 

“Uh,” Patty coughs and then rubs the back of his neck, embarrassed. “Never mind. It’s nothing.” 

“_Pats_,” Travis moans, “what the fuck, you can’t just say that and backtrack. C’mon, man. I promise I won’t get mad.” 

“Look, it’s really nothing,” Patty says and starts walking away. “You wanna play Mario Kart or something?” 

Patty’s the fucking worse but Travis runs to catch up with him anyway. 

**_____________**

**to sanny **  
mission failure  
also patty didn’t let me touch his vampire teeth 

**from sanny **  
did he let you touch his vampire dick 

**to sanny ****  
** fuck you

**_____________**

The last and final provision on his VamPats (Vampire Pats) Plan is the cabin. Patty’s never been to the cabin before and Travis hasn’t explicitly said the words “come into my cabin” to Patty’s face before, so he figures if some magical vampire-banishing force stops Patty from getting into the cabin, he’ll have the proof he needs. Besides, Travis has been back home with his parents for a month now and he hasn’t had a chance to spend more than a couple of days at the cabin before he’s called back. Chase is in the middle of moving between place so obviously, he’s been coercing Travis to helping him heave boxes up and down the stairs. Travis didn’t know a guy could own so many pairs of jeans, but apparently Chase has set his goals on the “Most Jeans Owned by a Twenty-Something Year Old” Guinness World Record. But Chase is nearly done with the move and his parents have hit that point in the summer where they like to sit on the porch for hours at a time and drink beer and reminisce about their honeymoon years (bleurgh), so the cabin is probably a good place to be. 

He sends a text to Patty asking if he’s free the next week or two and then sends a Google Maps screenshot of his cabin’s address. It’s not like he’s just inviting Patty for the sole purpose of the VamPats (Vampire Pats) Plan. He _ had _been planning on getting Patty up his cabin at some time during the summer; fishing is fun, but it’s a lot more fun with another person. 

Patty just replies with “ya” and then fifteen minutes later forwards him a screenshot with all his flight information. Three days later, he’s sitting on a chair at the arrivals gate of the airport with his sunglasses still on and carrying a sign that says #19 ON THE ICE BUT #1 IN MY HEART. He’s decorated it with a printed-out photo of Patty’s NHL.com roster photo, black and orange glitter, and some pink foam hearts. So he’s had a lot of time on his hands, sue him. 

Patty comes staggering out of arrivals with his suitcase a good thirty minutes after the TV screen in the lobby said his plane had landed. He scans the crowd outside of the gate for a couple of seconds before he finds Travis. His lips twitch up in a reluctant smile, and then he sees the sign Travis is holding and starts walking in the opposite direction. 

Travis laughs and gets up from his chair to chase after Patty. “Pats!” he calls down the hallway. Multiple heads swivel to look at him. “Patty! You fucker, wait up!” The man beside him shoots him a glare and bends down to whisper to his children while pointing accusingly at Travis. 

“God,” Patty says, looking Travis up and down, when he reaches him. He leans over to push Travis’ sunglasses up into his hair. “You look like such a fucking douchebag.” 

“That’s fashion, baby,” Travis says. He holds up the sign he made in front of Patty’s face. “Look at this sign.” 

“I can see it, thanks,” Patty says, wry and narrows his eyes at the photo of him. “I look kinda rough in that photo. Maybe I should start taking vitamins.” 

“Buddy, taking vitamins isn’t gonna help you with that amount of ugly,” Travis says and—yep, Patty’s putting him in a headlock and they’re getting into a wrestling match in the middle of Pearson Airport. 

Travis drives the entire way up to the cabin. He goes through like, three songs before Patty passes out beside him in the passenger seat. Travis reaches over to turn down the volume of the stereo and the air conditioning as to not disturb Patty’s sleep. He stops for gas halfway through and steals ten bucks from Patty’s wallet to buy two popsicles from the gas station. The guy behind the counter is wearing a Penguins t-shirt; Travis’ eyebrow twitches. The guy hands him back his change and Travis says “thanks” as passive aggressively as he can manage. The guy just grunts and slaps the receipt onto the counter. Jesus, you’d think watching Crosby win three Cups would relax a guy. 

“Does Philly have the worst fans?” he asks Patty when he gets back to the car. Patty’s busy blinking away sleep and looking like he just got hit by a bus. 

“What?” he mumbles. 

Travis hands him a popsicle and watches Patty haphazardly try to open the wrapper. He snatches it away from Patty and hands it back with the wrapper opened. “Can’t leave you to do anything by yourself,” he says. 

“Fuck you,” Patty says and crunches down.

Travis buckles his seatbelt. “So, yeah, Philly? Worst fans in the world?” 

“No way,” Patty says. “Leafs fans would burn down the city over a back-up goalie.” 

Yeah, okay. He’ll give that one to Patty. 

**_____________**

By the time Travis turns onto the dirt road that leads up to his cabin, the sun has almost set. The oranges and reds and pinks of dusk are melting into the sky in front of them, washed out stripes of colours along the horizon. Patty’s reading aloud a CBS News article about family separation at the border and making faint noises of disgust every couple of seconds. 

Travis pulls up in front of the cabin, puts the car into park, and patiently waits for Pats to finish reading his article, even if he is definitely not paying attention and, for the sake of transparency, has been more or less tuned out for the past fifteen minutes; most of Travis’ news comes from listening to G’s rants about the “sheer incompetence of this administration” and “inability for anybody in this godforsaken country to use common sense,” which, although biased, is rather succinct and effective. He misses G. 

Patty says, “Okay, I’m done,” and gets out of the car. Travis scrambles to follow, slamming the car door behind him, and jogging up the stairs to the front porch. Pats is peering inside the window at the front of the house, squinting into the dusty living room. 

“Do you have a sofa cushion with your dog’s face on it?” Pats asks. 

Travis sniffs and says, “Yes, that is correct,” and refuses to feel ashamed about it when Patty snickers, unappreciative. He fits the key into the lock and pushes the door open and stands in the doorway, looking expectantly at Patty. 

Pats stands in front of him and cranes his neck to the side to look past Travis into the dark hallway. “You gonna let me in, dude?” 

Travis feels his heart leap into his throat—this is it. This is the moment he’s been building up to for the past five something months, put at least two hours of work into researching and many more hours thinking about—sure, he thinks about Patty a lot just normally, but also in the context of him being a vampire—and it’s all _ finally _coming to a head. Suck on that, G. 

“No,” he says, and feels giddy. 

Patty raises an eyebrow. “You asked me to come down to your cabin and you’re not gonna let me in?”

“Yep,” Travis says, and crosses his arms, and tacks on, “unless there’s something you want to tell me?” 

Patty flushes and ducks his head and scowls. “No.” 

“Uh-huh,” he says, mentally preparing his thanks-so-much-for-entrusting-me-with-your-vampire-secret speech, and Pats is still refusing to look up at him. Travis uncrosses his arms and tries to soften his tone and says, “Pats, listen, you can tell me stuff. I’m not going to make fun of you. When have I ever made fun of you?” 

Patty huffs. “Do you want a list? Alphabetically or chronologically?” Travis winces but Patty just keeps talking with no regard for Travis’ guilty conscience, “Remember that time I couldn’t figure out how to use the laundry machine and broke it? Or when I left the oven on for half the day and almost burned down our apartment complex? Or—” 

“Okay okay okay,” Travis interrupts. “So I lied a_ little _ bit. The important stuff, I meant. You can trust that with me.” 

Patty goes quiet and doesn’t say anything for a while. They stand there listening to the lapping of the pond water and the rustling of the leaves in the summer breeze. “Yeah,” he eventually agrees, quietly. He jams his hands into his pockets and chews on his lip and lets out a breath, like he’s making a decision for himself, and then he takes a step closer to Travis and puts one hand above him on the door frame and tilts his head down and—

Travis’ brain shuts down because—because Patty’s kissing him, his mouth on Travis’ and Patty’s lips are chapped and dry and rough but fuck can Patty kiss—all gentle and slow and sultry but insistent and cocky, like he knows he’s good at it, and he swipes his tongue across Travis’ bottom lip and—his brain turns on again. This was not how the plan was supposed to go. Travis gasps and Patty roughly yanks his mouth away from his. Travis stares up at him; God, does Patty look incredible. He’s panting and his face is flushed like he’s just gotten on the bench after a long shift and his mouth is so, so red. 

“What?” Travis breathes out, and Patty exhales harshly. 

“Never mind,” he snaps, sharp and acidic. “Fuck, I shouldn’t have done that. I knew you weren’t—shit.” He stands in front of Travis, clenching and unclenching his fists, and Travis keeps staring at him. “Are you going to say anything?” 

Travis opens his mouth but no words come out; he’s thinking about touching Patty and getting him in his bed and making him lose his mind. 

“Fuck,” Patty says, and shoves past Travis into the house and stomps down the hallway, leaving Travis staring into the night. _ Shit_, he thinks, and then, _ he just got into the house _ and then, _ not a vampire???? _In any other situation, he would felt immense disappointment that this last ditch effort in the VamPats (Vampire Patty) Plan did not work, but he can still feel the press of Patty’s lips against his, how fucking hot it was when he flicked his tongue out. 

“Patty,” he calls out and turns around. He closes the front door and flicks on the hallway light. “Pats, what the fuck was that?” 

Patty stops halfway down the hallway and lets out a sigh. He glares at the wall like it just murdered his family or something. “I’m sorry, okay? I just—I just thought that maybe—you also wanted—” he breaks off. “I thought maybe you wouldn’t mind.” 

“What?” Travis says and wracks his brain for when he might have accidentally asked Patty to kiss him. “Whe—Why?” 

“Like—like when you asked me to come over for dinner and you had _ candles_?” 

_ Oh my God_, Travis thinks. “I _ gave _you the candles! For your mom!” he exclaims. 

“Or that other time,” Patty continues, ignoring Travis, “after playoffs, when you gave me that necklace? With the cross on it?” 

“It was just a gift! Like, a bro gift!” 

“Are you telling me you’d get Coots a fucking necklace?” Patty bites, and Travis stays silent on that one. “Yeah,” Patty says, “that’s what I thought. And then—inviting me to your cabin? And saying I can trust you with stuff?” 

Travis scans Patty’s face, but he doesn’t look like he’s joking. “I was trying to prove that you were a vampire,” he admits. 

Patty’s eyebrows shoot up. “What?” he says, and then repeats, “_What?_” 

“You’re not one, are you?” Travis asks, resigned. 

“No,” Patty agrees. 

“Figures,” Travis sighs. “It was a stupid plan, anyway. G said it looked fine when I asked him to look it over, but I feel like he just wanted to see if you’d end up murdering me by the end of it or not. Probably bet some money on it or something. Thanks for not murdering me, by the way,” he adds. 

“No problem,” Patty says dryly, and both of them are silent for a while. “Any chance we can just forget what happened just now?”

“Did you mean it?” Travis asks and Patty blushes but rolls his eyes and yeah, that’s the Patty Travis knows. He fits himself between Patty and the wall and puts a hand on his hip, watching how Patty’s eyes go wide and dark. 

“Teeks,” he says, voice low and gravelly, “what are you doing?” 

Travis steps closer into Patty’s space and slides his other hand into his hair and Patty’s eyes flutter downwards towards his mouth. “What does it look like I’m doing?” 

“Don’t fuck with me,” Patty says, but he’s leaning towards Travis, backing him up against the wall, slowly and almost imperceptibly, like he’s not thinking about doing it, he just wants to be closer to him. “You can’t fuck around with this, I’m not—I can’t joke about this.” 

And—yeah, Travis hasn’t explicitly thought about fucking Patty and getting down on his knees to take his cock into his mouth, but—this is Pats. He knows Patty like he knows himself, like he knows all the sundry places and people that he’s been to and met, and he wants the good parts and the bad parts of Patty, he’ll take all of them, any of them, any day and every day, human or not. He loves Pats and it isn’t a real stretch to say he could be in love with Pats. Maybe he’s grumpy and mostly emotionally stunted, but Pats is an easy person to love, Travis thinks: he doesn’t complain when Travis forces him to go on a run with him at eleven o’clock at night because he has too much energy for his own good; he lets Travis steal ten dollar bills from his wallet whenever he needs to; he flew to Travis from Winnipeg just because Travis asked, for fuck’s sake. He hadn’t thought about it before but he’s thinking about it now, and he _ wants_. 

“I’m not fucking around,” he says, and Patty grabs a fistful of his shirt and pulls Travis into his chest. His other hand snakes behind Travis and fits over his ass. 

“I can’t fucking stand you,” he mutters and bites down on Travis’ bottom lip; Travis groans. “You thought I was a vampire? What the fuck is wrong with you?” 

“What the fuck is wrong with _ you_? Kiss me already, you asshole,” Travis demands and Patty obliges. 

**_____________**

**to sanny **  
just a human :( 

**from sanny ****  
** told you he wasn’t a vampire  
hes pretty enough to be one tho 

**to sanny ****  
** bud, you dont even know half of it

**Author's Note:**

> title from vampire weekend's "unbelievers"
> 
> psa if your vampire friends do not want to tell you about their vampirism, leave them be! theyre already doomed to immortality please be nice to them. thanks for reading whatever the fuck this fic was lmao! [twitter](https://twitter.com/rusesdeguerre) | [tumblr](https://rusesdeguerre.tumblr.com/)


End file.
